Explanatory models of malingering

Rogers (1990a, 1990b) proposed three models to explain why certain persons malinger mental illness: pathogenic, criminological, and adaptational. Highly experinced forensic experts (N=320) performed prototypical ratings on attributes associated with each model: the highest ratings were given to the adaptational model. In addition, a principal components analysis provided initial empirical support for these three explanatory models. The relevance of these findings to theory and clinical practice is discussed.     

The psychiatrist's role in retrospective determination of suicide: an uncertain science

Psychiatrists have made significant contributions to our understanding of the phenomenon of suicide and are generally regarded as experts in all matters relating to suicide. When a legal determination must be made as to whether an individual has died as a result of suicide or by accidental (or any other) means, psychiatrists are often called upon to proffer their expert opinion to assist the courts to resolve the matter. Two case illustrations are presented and analyzed in which psychiatrists were called upon to make such retrospective determinations of suicide. The question is raised as to whether psychiatrists may sometimes exceed the limits of their scientific expertise in making such determinations.     

Eyewitness identification

In a simulated crime stituation, 3 groups of eyewitnesses viewed 2 target persons through a one-way mirror and were tested for accuracy of identification after dealy periods of 2, 21, or 56 days. Subjects made identifications from either a live “show-up” or by looking at photographs. In both methods of testing only 1 of the 2 targets was actually present in the 5-man array. Results indicated that delay affects number of false alarms, test method affects number of hits. Photographs produced less accurate performance than live show-up. More than 60% of the subjects erroneously selected one of the 4 distractor persons, a finding relevant to the use of eyewitness identification in criminal investigations. Only 28% of the subjects made no errors of identification.     

Quadratic voting in the wild: real people,real votes

Since their introduction in 1932, Likert and other continuous, independent rating scales have become the de facto toolset for survey research. Scholars have raised significant reliability and validity problems with these types of scales, and alternative methods for capturing perceptions and preferences have gained traction within specific domains. In this paper, we evaluate a new, broadly applicable approach to opinion measurement based on quadratic voting (QV), a method in which respondents express preferences by ‘buying’ votes for options using a fixed budget from which they pay quadratic prices for votes. Comparable QV-based and Likert-based survey instruments designed by Collective Decision Engines LLC were evaluated experimentally by assigning potential respondents randomly to one or the other method. Using a host of metrics, including respondent engagement and process-based metrics, we provide some initial evidence that the QV-based instrument provides a clearer measure of the preferences of the most intensely motivated respondents than the Likert-based instrument does. We consider the implications for survey satisficing, a key threat to the continued value of survey research, and discuss the mechanisms by which QV differentiates itself from Likert-based scales, thus establishing QV as a promising alternative survey tool for political and commercial research. We also explore key design issues within QV-based surveys to extend these promising results.     

American agriculture and trade policymaking: Two-level bargaining in the North American Free Trade Agreement

This paper has employed Putnam's two-level bargaining framework to analyze the negotiations leading to the North American Free Trade Agreement. The particular focus has been on agricultural aspects of the negotiations between the U.S. and Mexico, identifying the distribution of coalitions and preferences across the U.S. polity that influenced the drafting and ultimate ratification of the agreement. Special emphasis has been given to how the negotiations were influenced by the intersecting of agricultural interests and strategies at both domestic and international levels.     

Financial support of children involved in special needs adoption: A policy evaluation

This article represents one of the first systematic analyses of state subsidy payments to families adopting children with special needs (children with physical and/or mental disabilities and children who are classified as hard-to-place). The analysis focuses on the monetary subsidies provided to adoptive parents of special needs children. It attempts to characterize variation in subsidy levels between counties and the impact of subsidy levels on a child's length of time until adoptive placement. The data set employed in the analysis was collected from primary sources and is one ofthe first available depositories of information on subsidy payments for special needs adoption. Results indicate that child and case characteristics explain a significant proportion of the variation in state adoption subsidy levels, but that a substantial proportion of between-county variation in subsidy levels remains unexplained. Subsidy level was not found to affect the adoption placement rate at the margin, except for children with mental disabilities. The policy implications of these results are discussed.